Dear Nathaniel,
Hello my angel, we've just been to see you at the cemetery again, it's really nice there at night with your sun in a jar. It lights up around you with lovely blue light. It's been really hot today so I'm hoping for some cooler weather so we can sleep better. I think I might be starting to cope a bit better, I want to start doing things again instead of basically nothing, but that will come with time I guess.
Tonight, as promised we're continuing the theme of Yardbirds guitarists and listening to the album Eric Clapton went onto to record after leaving the Yardbirds. He joined up with visionary John Mayall and his Bluesbreakers for their debut album. While Clapton didn't stay with the Bluesbreakers for long this brilliant album is his legacy with the band.
There's something so downright appealing with this type of straight up guitar blues, basically every song is just a way to show off how good Clapton was at guitar. The great part is of course just how good Clapton was, and it just makes the whole album a joy this listen to.
The thing with Blues like this is that it just makes you want to sit and listen to it forever, at least that's it's effect for me. Even though from time to time I just want it to go a tiny bit louder, with just a bit more of an edge to the guitar, of course that comes later when the truly heavy guitar sound is perfected. I had also completely forgotten about the Hammond organ on this album and it's just such a treat to hear the instrument unexpected.
The Hammond organ is just not something that you could mistake for anything else. I've never quite understood what possessed blues, rock and prog artists to use the Hammond but I'm so glad they did. Of course that only really applies if the Hammond is in the hands of someone skilled with it, while it's not exactly crucial for short songs that use it sparingly it can become a problem in progressive rock.
Long sweeping compositions that rely heavily on the Hammond organ can sound absolutely amazing if played right, but it's incredibly easy to spot a bad Hammond player in progressive rock where it can become the focus at times, and it can sound absolutely dreadful. Of course that's not really going to be an issue here, or ever since I probably won't listen to an album with bad Hammond playing more than once.
I hope you're enjoying this style of the Blues my love, I guess sometimes Blues can be hard to get into and really appreciate when it lacks the poppy or psychedelic sound of a lot of the other 60's bands, but it really does become far more rewarding. Tomorrow we'll take one step forward into Clapton's history with his second album with his next band Cream.
I love you my son. I hope everything is so lovely for you. Goodnight my sweet angel Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
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